Mattel in Sustainable, Recycled Packaging Pledge

Toy and games manufacturer Mattel’s packaging is set to become more eco-friendly in line with a new environmental blueprint released by the firm at the start of October 2011.

Responsible for manufacturing Fisher Price and Matchbox products and the Barbie doll line, Mattel dates back to 1945 and, on sales figures, is the globally dominant toy company.

In light of a wide-reaching campaign carried out by environmental organisation Greenpeace earlier this year, Mattel will now entirely avoid purchasing packaging and paper products from companies associated with the destruction of the world’s rainforests.

As far as Greenpeace is concerned, these companies include APP (Asia Pulp and Paper), which reportedly has a heavy hand in Indonesian rainforest clearance programmes. From here on, sustainability principles will inform Mattel’s packaging use criteria, through a three-step process.

Mattel: Recycled Packaging

Mattel intends to ensure that it recycles as much post-consumer packaging as it can, completely sidesteping rainforest-sourced products and drawing on independently-certified virgin fibre, instead.

“We are committed to advancing the use of sustainably sourced paper and wood fiber across our business, beginning with packaging”, Mattel’s Corporate Affairs Vice President, Lisa Marie Bongiovanni, explained in a company statement.

Sustainable Mattel Packaging

Specific sustainable Mattel packaging goals have been set. In the immediate short-term, the firm wants sustainable fibre or recycled products to make up 70 per cent of its packaging – a total set to increase to 85 per cent by Q4 2015.

Mattel’s new, eco-packaging directive also includes a pledge to release progress reports into the public domain. It adds in its official press release that it’s ‘…already launched efforts to implement the new sustainable sourcing principles and established aggressive goals to measure progress on packaging as the focus of the company’s initial implementation phase.’